Coquelin put in a really good performance as well. Gave them very little time in midfield, contributed to the attack. Best player: Wilshere. Decent: Coquelin, Gibbs. Needs to improve: Walcott, Giroud.
The outside shot wasn't a "chance", I'm talking real chances. Walcott has been 1 on 1 in 3 occasions at least. I'm sick of this "unlucky" bullshit. Any time he has to make a decision he is clueless basically. Never raises his head, never does anything out of his 'template'.
Giroud didn't have his greatest game, but he did make the assist and we needed a goal so im glad. If your gonna play a bad game at least get a goal/assist to make up for it like Arshavin, and Giroud did. Wilshere was brilliant today. Best player on the pitch easily. And he capped it with a goal, which was very much deserved. Gibbs was very good today as well. Infact our whole back-line i thought played well and the young pole in goal did what he had to. The second half performance was much better, we dominated the game and made chance after chance. It was only a matter of time until we scored and i'm pleased we did it in normal time. A win, clean sheet, through to the next round of the FA Cup and only 90 mins played - Result! 1-0 to the Arsenal!
Walcott had 2 clear goal chances, the 1-1 when he was clear through, and his open goal miss when he allowed the Swansea player to clear off the line, 2 piss poor finishes.
I know it's an 'assist', but that goal was really all about Jacks great shot and finish, it wasn't like Giroud thread it through and Wilshere latched onto it, the goal was everything about Wilshere's finish, Giroud simply laid it off.
The header as shown on the replay was completely reachable. Only way the keeper could have stopped it was to get lucky.
Surely the future of Wilshere is CAM. ---------------------------------------Szszesny--------------------------------------- Jenko-----------------Mertesacker--------------------Vermaelen (vc)-----------New LB ----------------------New DM---------------------Arteta/Diaby------------------------ Oxlade-Chamberlain---------------------Wilshere (c)-----------------------------Cazorla -------------------------------------New Striker--------------------------------------- Luke Shaw Yann M'Vila Errr... Lukaku please?! Walcott, Giroud, Podolski for rotational depth. I would we need more new defenders but I think we all know by now that our defending will never improve under the current regime and that poor defending is not really down to the actual individuals!
For the assist Giroud set it up perfectly to be hit, it was at the right height in the right place. Great touch.
I have to say I'm glad I found a stream to watch and didn't have to get an impression of the way we played from here. When you outshoot a team 26-6 and 16-1 on target, you simply can't say the team played badly. I'd rather we missed those chances than not create them in the first place, if you know what I mean.
He made many deft touches and won the ball in the air plenty of times. He made a number of mistakes and is largely ineffective when he's dragged out wide, but he certainly had his moments.
Anyway, Laudrup has shown that he is not tactically naive and can change it up, just like the previous 2 nil win over us. They played a tidy disciplined game at the back, and Walcott as per usual in such circumstances was bad. (add that to the evidence bin of ~7 years performances) I know I sound critical, but it's because you guys have been on about him based on performances vs Reading and Newcastle which completely buffed up his stats. I would have wished to admit that this player has changed to the level you claim, but he is still utterly clueless and a waste of a spot in a non-counter attack based game.
I thought we played well, we where the better team in the first half but too slow. In the second half we uped the tempo and completely dominated the game. It was clear a goal was comming and we where outplaying them and closing them down all over the pitch leading up to the goal. (Glad to see lots of positive comments about Walcotts performance in the after match analysis).
